The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint

You can get this error when you want to inset data into a table that has the Foreing Key. It means that there is no relevant record in the Primary table that Foreign Key is linked to. The record must first be added to the primary table.

Let’s make an example for a better understanding.

Example:

We create two tables as follows. In the Person table we set the ID column as Primary Key.

Now let’s set the PersonID column in the PersonDetails table as the Foreign Key of the Primary Key in the Person table.

Then, when there is no record in the Primary table, try to add a record to the Foreign table.

We’ll get the error as follows. Because the Primary table does not have the corresponding ID value.

Msg 547, Level 16, State 0, Line 3

The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint “FK_PersonDetails_Person”.

The conflict occurred in database “TestDB”, table “dbo.Person”, column ‘ID’.

The statement has been terminated.

If we add a record to the primary table first, the process of adding records to the foreign table will also be completed successfully.